The International Charter is a system that supplies free satellite imagery to emergency responders anywhere in the world.
The Charter concept is this: a single phone number is made available to authorized parties providing 24/7 contact to a person who can activate the charter. Once activated, a project manager takes charge. The project manager knows what satellite resources are available, how to task them to collect data, and how to quickly analyze the collected data to create impact maps for first responders. These maps, provided to responders for free, often show where the damage is and where crisis victims are, allowing responders to plan and execute relief support.
You can think of the Charter as a one-stop-shop for impact maps—an essential resource, since in many cases satellite data are the only practical method to assess current ground conditions after a disaster.
This month, Landsat data were ingested to help create maps for the following Charter activations:
+ Ebola mapping efforts in Africa
+ Hurricane Gonzalo mapping efforts
+ Cyclone HudHud (India)
Details from the Charter’s RSS feed:
On 2014-10-10 14:50:43, 30 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-10 15:10:41, 30 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-10 15:13:50, 30 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-10 15:38:06, 28 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-14 12:01:07, 4 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-14 13:07:15, 8 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-15 13:41:48, 1 LANDSAT-8 scene was ingested for event: 201410_Hurricane_Gonzalo
On 2014-10-16 05:12:26, 17 LANDSAT-7 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-16 05:26:51, 5 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-20 07:23:15, 1 LANDSAT-8 scene was ingested for event: 201410_Hurricane_Gonzalo
On 2014-10-20 08:02:45, 2 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Typhoon_HudHud_India
On 2014-10-24 05:49:41, 5 LANDSAT-7 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-28 06:03:55, 12 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-28 06:34:15, 14 LANDSAT-7 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-29 05:48:34, 3 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-30 05:35:00, 2 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Typhoon_HudHud_India
On 2014-10-30 05:39:00, 1 LANDSAT-7 scene was ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-30 05:42:35, 4 LANDSAT-8 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
On 2014-10-30 05:47:51, 2 LANDSAT-7 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Typhoon_HudHud_India
On 2014-10-31 06:06:04, 4 LANDSAT-7 scenes were ingested for event: 201410_Ebola_Africa
Further Reading:
+ Mapping Disaster: A Global Community Helps from Space